Tastemakers: What's Music Week's Daniel Gumble listening to this week?

Music Week’s Daniel Gumble on Chastity Belt’s I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone

When Seattle’s Chastity Belt released their 2014 debut No Regerts - yes, that’s a deliberate misspelling – few were willing to take them completely seriously, least of all the band themselves.

But while their lyrics seldom veered from tales of smoking weed, getting drunk and partying, the simplistic codas from guitarist Lydia Lund and the melancholy in frontwoman Julia Shapiro’s blunt vocal delivery always hinted at something deeper.

This proved to be the case when follow-up Time To Go Home landed in 2015. While they certainly hadn’t lost any of the sardonic humour (see Cool Slut and/or their press shots) the melodies were catchier, the playing tighter, the lyrics more poignant.

If No Regerts was the sound of students getting wasted, Time To Go Home was the sound of a band taking things just a tad more seriously. Though it passed largely under the radar, it was one of the finest indie-rock releases of recent years.

Now, having dropped two sublime new tracks – Different Now and Caught In A Lie - from upcoming third album I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone, it sounds like they’re about to step things up again.

Both hint at a looser approach to arrangements, built around repetitive, reverb-drenched, clean guitars. And if the rest of the album (out June 2 via Hardly Art) follows suit, it’s likely to be one of the indie highlights of 2017.